Media apps are most popular for connected devices, with Chromecast number one

App Annie has just revealed the most-used apps when it comes to connected devices – things like fitness bands, smartwatches, smart TVs, cars and even household appliances like fridges which are all going increasingly online these days as we move further into the era of the Internet of Things.

The "Spotlight on Connected Devices" report studied 30 apps for connected devices in total – five apps across six categories – and the leading sectors turned out to be media, productivity, and health and fitness.

Media is top of the tree with the five media apps sampled in App Annie's report accounting for around 40 per cent of all downloads, with all of these apps ranked in the overall top 10 for connected devices. The number one media app was Chromecast, followed by DIRECTV (AT&T), and then GoPro.

The productivity sector was next most popular, with the five apps sampled there accounting for 30 per cent of all downloads – the number one app there was HP ePrint, followed by Kodak Kiosk Connect, and Square Register was third.

The health and fitness sector, which was third most popular on around 15 per cent, was led by the Fitbit app, followed by Jawbone Up, and Garmin Connect. This is the fastest growing category of connected apps, though, having grown 230 per cent in terms of monthly downloads in August 2014 compared to the same month last year.

That's a far greater increase than either media or productivity, or any other sector – as a whole, all connected device apps showed a growth of around 50 per cent in the US over the past year.

The bottom three categories of connected apps studied were Car, Home, and Watch – and despite these sectors getting a lot of the media interest (particularly the latter), when combined these three only represented 15 per cent of app downloads. As App Annie notes, though, these categories are still in their early days, and will probably see significant growth in the future.